Spontaneous road trip and race

I'm going to keep this very brief, because I need to get some sleep for a half-marathon tomorrow. Yes, a half-marathon.

This morning, I was trying to think of something to do tonight or tomorrow, because my parents were taking the kids camping, and Jerry was off work. Someone on Facebook mentioned a local 5K, and I thought, "Hey, maybe I'll do a race!" Which then led me to thinking about wanting to do a longer race than a 5K. I searched for half-marathons online, but only found one, which was 4 hours away in northwest Michigan.

When it was clear that there weren't any other options, I started to think of the logistics of it. Would it be so crazy to drive up there for it? There was nothing holding us at home, because the kids will be camping until Monday. So I asked Jerry, and while he thought it was crazy, he thought it sounded fun, too.

The race had a marathon, half-marathon, and 10K option, as well as a four-person marathon relay. I tried to recruit my brother to do the relay with us, but he had to work, so it was just Jerry and me. Jerry decided to run the 10K, and I chose to do the half-marathon.

I looked up the race, and discovered that it is a SMALL race. Like, tiny. Here is the starting line photo from last year:

The race goes around a small inland lake. The loop around the lake is just less than 7 miles around, so you do almost two loops for a half-marathon, a little less than one loop for the 10K, and almost four for a marathon. All three races start at the same time, just at different spots at the course, and the finish line is the same for everyone.

I looked up the results from last year, and there was only ONE woman in the 30-39 age group (my age group). She finished much faster than I plan on finishing. So, in my brother's words, "If you ain't first, you're last!" ;)

The field is actually pretty competitive for such a small race. I will likely be in the bottom five finishers overall! Hahaha, I really don't mind, though. The marathon will be going on at the same time, so at least I won't be the last one on the course.

But first, we had to drive up there, to Cadillac, Michigan.

Jerry came home from work early, so we headed out at 3:15. The first half of the drive was nothing new to me, but once we got up to Bay City area and headed west, it was all new territory. And it was so nice! Jerry and I both kept talking about how pretty it was. We listened to old school music, and had a good time in the car.

When we got to Cadillac, I was surprised, to say the least. I don't know what I was picturing, but it was completely different than I expected. It's a super cute town--not much to do/see, but really pretty, clean, and spacious. I was absolutely starving, because it was already 7:00, so we headed down the road to a bar/restaurant called Clam Lake Beer Company (highly recommended by the hotel). Jerry was thrilled with the selection of beer, and I just wanted food. NOW. I ordered a pesto chicken quesadilla with sundried tomatoes, and it was really good!

Anyway, after dinner, we drove around the course of the race, to check it out. Holy smokes, is it ever GORGEOUS. Photos don't do it justice at all.

(It just took literally over 40 minutes to upload that one photo! The Holiday Inn "Express" clearly wasn't named for its internet speed.)

After seeing the course, I was so happy with the spur-of-the-moment decision to drive up here. It’s SO pretty, and I can’t wait to run on it tomorrow. I am pretty sure it’s going to be my slowest half ever, because I plan to take at least a few dozen photos on the course. 

I was actually thinking of doing the 10K instead of the half-marathon, because I’d like to run with Jerry. There really isn’t any reason to do the half over the 10K, so we’ll see what I end up registering for in the morning. On one hand, I feel like if I drove all this way, I might as well do the half; but on the other hand, running with Jerry would be more enjoyable, and something we could do together.

After the race, we plan to spend the day here before driving home. We were planning to go to Traverse City, but now that we’ve seen Cadillac, we think we’d be just as happy hanging out here. It’s just such a nice little town! 

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Turtle oatmeal

I found myself feeling kind of stressed out this morning about getting in a long run. Now that the kids are out of school, I can't just go run whenever I feel like it. As I was thinking about it, though, I realized that stressing out was completely counterproductive to what I was hoping to work on this summer. I wanted stress-free running! That's why I cut way back on my mileage.

So, I'm going to try something I've never really done before. I'm going to toss my running schedule out the window, and just run when/where/how long I feel like. The only "rule" I have is that I must get in at least 3 runs per week, 3+ miles each time. That's been a rule of mine since I started running four years ago. I will most likely run 4-5 days a week, but the minimum is 3.

I don't want to stress out about trying to get in a long run on Fridays, or any run at all if it's ridiculously hot and humid. So if I have a good opportunity to go for a 10-mile run on a nice, cool Tuesday, then I'll go for it. And if my friends are running on Saturday, and it works out I can go, I'd love to do that. I've always followed a schedule, so I have no idea how well this will work, but because I'm not actively training for a particular race right now, it's the perfect time to give it a try!

Noah was at a friend's house this morning, so I was home with Eli. I had oatmeal for the first time in a while for breakfast, and I tried a combo I'd never tried before: oatmeal topped with caramel, chocolate chips, and pecans. I can't believe I never thought to do that before! I've done the caramel, chocolate chips and peanut butter, or caramel, chocolate chips and coconut; but never the pecans. It was really good--tasted like a turtle chocolate!

I used 33 grams of oats (which I cooked in water), 17 grams of caramel dip, 10 grams of mini chocolate chips, and 7 grams of pecans--which made the whole thing a total of 6 PointsPlus.

Eli went to my mom's house for a little while in the late morning, so I decided to go to the State Park for a long run. I decided to do 6 miles at a 9:1 run/walk ratio (run 0.9 miles, walk 0.1 miles, repeat). I really enjoy doing the 9:1 thing for my long runs. Since I was going to be taking a walk break each mile, I figured I might as well try and hit a decent pace during the running portions. I was hoping for sub-9:00 pace, but wasn't sure how I'd feel once I was actually running.

I had to start at a different part of the park, because the usual lot was closed, so that actually made the run a little more interesting. I didn't know where the mile markers were without looking at my watch, and it was kind of nice not knowing. As soon as I pulled into the park, it started to rain very lightly. I hoped the sprinkling would keep up through the run--running with light rain is the best!

I was able to hold a sub-9:00 pace for the first interval, so I made that my goal for the rest of the run. Run at a sub-9:00 pace for 0.9 miles, then walk for 0.1. Doing the 9:1 ratio sounds like it would be a lot easier than it actually is--this was a tough run! But mentally, it worked out well, because if I had been trying to hold a sub-9:00 pace for 6 miles this morning, it just wouldn't have happened. Physically, I'm sure I could do it if I really tried, but mentally, the desire just wasn't there. When I do the 9:1 intervals, I only have to hold pace for 0.9 miles, which doesn't seem far at all. It's much nicer to focus on a short segment at a time, rather than the whole distance at once.

I even managed to take a decent mid-run selfie (during my run portion, not my walk portion) ;)

It continued to drizzle rain the entire run, which felt great. The last mile had a couple of hills (not steep, but more than the 1 foot of elevation gain I had yesterday!), so I just made it a mission to run a little harder. And somehow, I managed negative splits for my running segments!

I think that most surprising to me is that my overall pace was 9:28, which included the walking segments. When I'm actually out there walking them, I always feel like it's going to drag my pace down. I think that if I had run the whole 6 miles today, my pace probably would have been pretty close to 9:30, so it didn't really affect my average pace at all. Doing it this way was actually harder than running the whole thing, because I pushed my pace while running.

It was a nice run today, and left me wanting more... which is definitely a good thing!

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Running with family

I had a very strange wake-up call this morning. Last week, my brother and I made plans to run together on Thursday morning (today) at 6:15 AM. Yesterday, I got a voicemail from him at around 8:00 AM, saying something like, "Katie, are you coming? I've been waiting here for you for a while..." and I totally panicked. I was second-guessing what day it was, and what day we made plans for. I felt guilty for making him wait. (All of these thoughts were just a second or two, in reality). Then Nathan said he was just kidding, and wanted to make sure we were still on for the morning. Asshole. ;)

Last night, I had a dream that I was at the dorm for the Heartbreak Hill Half & Festival, and while I was there, Nathan called me to ask if I was planning on showing up for our run. I said, "Oh crap, I forgot! I'll be right there!" and then I got distracted. I called him an hour later, and he told me that he'd already run five miles without me, so I could just forget about it. I felt awful in my dream.

Then, I woke up. I was so relieved that it had just been a dream, because it made me feel so stressed for some reason. I glanced at the clock, and it was 6:15 AM. I was supposed to meet Nathan at the State Park at 6:15 AM. My stupid phone had shut off for some reason during the night, and I was using it for an alarm at 5:50, so I obviously didn't get that alarm.

I flew out of bed in a panic, ran around the house looking for a phone to call Nathan (my cell was still taking its good old time turning back on). I called Nathan and told him I was leaving right then, and he said that was fine, because he had gotten out of work about 10 minutes late. I threw on some clothes and ran out the door. I ended up getting there just after 6:30. Usually, I am the queen of being on time, or even early, so this made me a little crazy. Thankfully, my brother is super laid-back, and didn't mind at all.

We ended up running the three-mile loop around the park. I hadn't run with Nathan in a couple of weeks, so it was nice to catch up. He's thinking about a goal race for the fall. When I was going through race pictures for yesterday's post, I realized that I've done a race with all three of my siblings at some point, but not all at the same time.

Me, Brian, and Jeanie (May 2010, Indy 500 Festival Mini Marathon)

Nathan, me, Brian (April 2014, Martian Meteor 5K)

Jeanie, me, Nathan (April 2014, Glass City Marathon Relay)

And individually with each of them:

Brian and me during Ragnar Great River 2010; Jeanie and me during the
Rockford Half-Marathon 2013; Me and Nathan after the
Memorial Day Run 2014.

But still no race with all four of us!

I love that we are all runners now, especially because none of us ran when we were kids. Brian took it up in 2005-ish(?) because he said that he loved his ice cream, and as he got older, he would either have to give up the ice cream or start running. Sound familiar? ;)  I started next, and that was in 2010. Then Jeanie followed in 2012. And Nathan, in 2013. I think it would be so fun to do a "family Ragnar" or another sort of race together. 

Anyway, my run with Nathan was good. It felt hard, but that's nothing new for 96% humidity!

Dang, check out that elevation gain. The State Park is a tough course, what can I say?!

In my rush to get out the door, I forgot my heart rate monitor, so the calories burned are wrong. I wish I burned that many during a three-miler!

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Today was the kids' last day of school. Finally! It feels kind of strange to have such a short summer vacation, because they went to school for an extra two weeks. I signed the kids up for a couple of day camps--basketball and football, which they did last year and loved them. They're only three days each, for two hours a day. We don't have any major plans until the end of August when we go to Punta Cana. 

I'm hoping to have a relaxing summer, without too much stress, and maybe even get back down to my goal weight before our vacation. My weight hasn't budged much at all for months now (hanging on in the 147-149 range). I'll start doing my Wednesday Weigh-ins again when something actually happens. I know what I need to change, but this year has just been extra tough for me. Talking about it with Heather during the interview for her Half Size Me podcast was actually kind of therapeutic, and it made me realize some things that I hadn't thought of before. I'm hoping that after this (the difficult time I'm having) passes, I'll look back and say, "Yeah, 2014 was a tough year for my weight maintenance, but I stuck it out, and now I'm back where I need to be."

Sometimes that's all I need to do--remind myself that some days/months/years will be harder than others, but it's pretty much a fact of life. Compared to 2014, I feel like I skated right through 2013 (well, until Mark's cancer diagnosis, anyway). 

I'm not even sure what the point of all this rambling is! I need to get back to spring-cleaning my house, before spring is officially summer. ;)

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Tips for running (and training for) your first half-marathon

If you missed it, I previously wrote about running (and training for) your first 5K and your first 10K. The half-marathon distance is where things take a big leap, and your training gets longer. You're probably no longer a "beginner", and you've likely done a few shorter distance races.

My first half-marathon was a race that I had walked for three years in a row before I decided to run it. It was the Indy 500 Festival Mini-Marathon, which is the largest half-marathon in the country, and third largest in the world (source). I didn't have a time goal in mind, but I really wanted to truly enjoy the entire race--and I think that made all the difference in how great of a race I had!

I've now completed 11 half-marathons, so it's no longer an intimidating distance for me. My favorite distance is still the 10K, but half-marathon is a close second. It's long enough that you have to train for it, but not so long that the training consumes your life (like a marathon does). Anyway, I hope these tips will be helpful! Feel free to share your own tips in the comments.

A couple of other posts that may be helpful are:
A guide to "running lingo"
50 running tips

*I do not recommend a half-marathon as your first race. I'd start with a 5K, move to a 10K, and once you get at least a couple of races under your belt, then think about the half. I think if you've finished a 10K, you're running regularly, and have the discipline to stick to a training plan, you're probably ready to tackle the half-marathon!

*Choose a training plan based on your goal. If your goal is just to finish, feeling strong, find a plan that doesn't focus on a bunch of speed work. I've written a plan for beginners, which you can find here on my Training Plans page. I don't recommend having a time goal for your first, because it adds a lot of unnecessary stress in what should be an enjoyable race.

*If you DO decide to have a time goal, at least make it a realistic one. I love this pace calculator. You can input a recent 5K or 10K time, and it will give you a prediction for a half-marathon time. That is also a realistic goal.

*Pick a race that works well with your goal. If you're a slower runner, or a walker, you'll probably want to choose a race that has a lot of people in your pace range. You can check the website to see if there is a time limit on the course, and then check out the previous year's results online to see where you fall. Just for reference, the winners of a half-marathon will usually finish just over an hour; and a common time limit for a half is 4 hours (18:19/mi). So in general, you'll be finishing somewhere in there ;)  (Fun fact: In 2012, the median finish time for males was 2:01:28, and 2:19:47 for females. Source)

*Announce on Facebook, and all your social media sites, that you've registered for your first half-marathon. Telling the world makes you much more likely to stick with the training ;)

*Don't slack on your training! While some people can manage to complete a 5K or 10K with little to no training, the half-marathon distance is definitely tougher--even if you plan on walking it. When I walked my first, I didn't train at all, and I paid the price for that (I had to wear a walking cast for a few weeks because I had bad tendonitis). You should get in a long run of 10 or more miles about two weeks out from the race.

Walking my first half-marathon

(*Also, don't wear your bib as high as I pinned mine. I had no clue when I pinned it there, but nobody wears their bibs that high!)

*On a related note, if you DO happen to miss a run for a very good reason, don't worry about making it up. Just start where you left off.

*Practice your fueling plan during your long runs. When you run for 13.1 miles, you're going to on the course for roughly 2-3 hours--and you're going to need something to help give you the energy to keep going. During training, you can experiment with gels, chews, sports drinks, etc. to find out what works for YOU. This is one area that truly is unique to each individual. Your training partner may do great with gels, but they might make you nauseous. Or vice versa. Try out all different types of fuel during your training runs to find out what agrees with YOUR body. In general, I'd aim to take in 1-2 gels, or 3-6 ShotBloks (or equivalent) for a two-hour half-marathon (maybe miles 5 & 10?). An additional gel for three hours.

*Check out the race website to see where the water stations are, and practice taking in your fuel at those points during your training runs.

*Make a mental plan about what you're going to do at the fuel stations. Personally, I walk through the stations and drink at each and every single one (unless I'm doing a 5K or 10K). It's important to hydrate early on, before your body gets upset that you're running for so long. And yes, walking through the water stations still "counts" as running a half-marathon ;)

*If possible, find a training partner to prepare for the race with. Running with a partner really helps the long mileage fly by!

Jessica was my training partner for my first full marathon, and it helped a LOT!

Partners that run together, treat themselves to fro-yo together!

*Check out the course, and try to mimic the terrain if possible. If there are tons of hills, then you'll obviously want to include a lot of hills in your long runs. If it's a trail run, then you'll want to run on trails.

*If your shoes accumulate more than 300-450 miles, you may want to swap them out for a new pair. My shoes have to retire at 350 miles, not a single mile later! I learned this the hard way ;)

*Running your first half-marathon is a really big deal, so make sure you treat it like one! Let your family and friends know how much it means to you, and if you want them there, just ask. Non-runners usually have a hard time understanding how important a race is, and it's not personal. Just tell them what you're hoping to get from them--cheers, posters, whatever floats your boat.

*Like always, don't go out too fast when you're at the race. Chances are, you'll be feeling great, and with the spectators and other runners around, you'll want to push the pace a little. But that almost always will come back to bite you later. Start out very conservatively, and if you're still feeling great at the 10 mile mark, push the last 5K.

*Some half-marathons have "pacers", which are people who are assigned to finish the race at a particular time. They'll carry a sign that reads the projected finish time, so you know who they are. If you're afraid of going out too fast, or if you want to finish in a particular time, you can always choose to stick with a pacer to help with your goal.

*This is an obvious tip, but make sure you go to the bathroom before the race! The porta potty lines are long, so allow enough time.

*Don't worry about stopping your Garmin, or other sports watch, right as you cross the finish line. There will likely be a photographer taking photos of you, so smile big and forget about your watch until you are well across the line. You want great race photos ;)

What NOT to do when you cross the finish line!

A perfect finish line photo ;)

*Be prepared to be sore for a day or two after the race. Once your legs are accustomed to doing that distance, it won't be so bad; but after your first half-marathon, you'll likely be pretty sore! Plan on taking a week off of running to recuperate.

You may need help putting on pants (be careful not to spill
your celebratory beer). 

I hope this helps! If you prepare yourself by training well, and sticking with realistic goals, I would bet that you'll do great at your first half marathon! Make sure you take pictures so you can submit your accomplishment for Motivational Monday ;)

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Thrift store finds

Well, I guess I spoke too soon about the fish flies not being too bad this year. Yesterday, Jerry and I went to the rec center so I could sign the boys up for football camp, and I couldn't believe how many fish flies were on the wall!

In the afternoon, we went to the thrift store to see if we could get cleats for the kids for baseball. Whenever I go to the thrift store, I end up browsing around for the longest time, just looking at all the interesting stuff that accumulates there. I found a couple of cool things:

A CamelBak! It was literally brand new, and only $2.99; the only problem was that it was missing the bladder. But I knew I could buy a replacement bladder, and Jerry really wanted the CamelBak, so we bought it.

I also found this book, which I just had to buy!

I love that the woman on the cover is wearing a button-down collared shirt to run ;) The book was published in 1978, so I'm really curious about what kind of advice it offers. Should be an interesting read, to say the least.

Last night, the kids had a baseball game at 7:00. I had to leave early, because I had a Skype interview at 8:00 with Heather from the Half Size Me podcast. I was on her podcast before, in the fall of 2012, and I really enjoyed chatting with her. I love her podcast, so I was happy to do it again. We talked about maintenance, and the struggles I've been having, as well as a little about the From Fat to Finish Line documentary. I really don't have any news about the film--when I asked Angela, the producer, she said it could be a while before it's available. Apparently, documentaries take a LONG time to go from filming to screen.

Anyway, the interview went great (at least I hope so). I felt a lot more comfortable this time around, and I don't think I said "um" so much ;)  Heather is really easy to talk to! I'll let you know when the interview from yesterday is available for download.

This morning, Jerry was off work and we decided to let the kids play hooky from school today. They only had a half-day, and their last day is Thursday (tomorrow and Thursday are also half-days), so we didn't see any harm in letting them stay home. As soon as I got up this morning, I wanted to get my run out of the way. It was already 73 degrees with 83% humidity at 7:00 this morning! I only had three miles on the schedule, so I wanted to get it done before it got any hotter. I hoped the fish flies would leave me alone for 30 minutes.

To say it was a hot run was an understatement. I hate when it's super humid, because my sweat doesn't evaporate, which makes me feel like a slippery mess. I ran at a 9:00/mi pace for the first couple of miles, and was tempted to slow it down for the third mile. As soon as I hit the start of mile three, some birds started dive-bombing me, and I ran hard to get away from them. After that, it was really hard to maintain pace, but since I'd already gone 2.2 miles at that pace, I decided to just try and run a sub-9:00 for the last mile. Not a bad pace for this humidity!

When I finished my run, I was pretty much gasping for air. It was so hard to breathe when the air was so thick. I sat in front of the fan drinking some ice water for a few minutes before taking a shower.

In the late morning, we took the kids to the wave pool at the Metropark. There was a threat of a thunderstorm, but it looked like it would hit north of us, so we took a chance and went to the pool. I really don't like swimming, so I brought Bart Yasso's book (that I bought at the Runner's World Half expo), and sat in the shade to read while the boys swam.

It was really windy, and I started to worry that maybe we would get a storm, but it never came. Because of the wind, the Metropark deflated their huge water slide, though. The kids lasted a few hours in the pool, and then we headed home.

We're supposed to have thunderstorms tomorrow, too, so we'll see what happens.

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Motivational Monday #65

Happy Motivational Monday, Friends! It's been a couple of weeks, and I have some great MM posts for you today. Enjoy!

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Sam just completed her first FULL marathon! She has run short distances, including a sub-28 5K time, but she prefers to race-walk. She worked on her race-walking technique for about a year, losing 50 pounds in the process(!), and just completed the Vancouver USA marathon with a time of 5:39:59. (This blows my mind, because that's a pace of 12:59 per mile--that's a VERY fast walk!). The race was very special to her because it was at that race a year ago that she completed her first half marathon.

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Sara just started running in February, after losing about 25 pounds, and she recently ran her very first 5K race! She did the Women's Fitness Festival 5K in Sacramento with a friend, who helped pace her by doing a run/walk interval, and she completed her goal of finishing in 45 minutes! She plans to run another 5K on July 4th. (Sara's race report)

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Sharon is official a triathlete! She completed her first triathlon (a 300 meter swim, 10 mile bike ride, 4K run) on June 1st. She did the race with her sister, and both of them placed in their age groups. Her stomach cramped up on her during the race, but she kept moving and is very proud for finishing (especially considering she didn't even start biking or swimming until February of this year)!

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Anna and her husband just completed their first race--a 10K! When she signed up for the race six weeks ago, she hoped she'd be able to walk a 15:00/mi pace; then once she started training, she realized she could only do 18:00/mi, and was a little disheartened, thinking that her goal was unrealistic. Well, she completed the race with an average pace of 15:02/mi! Her husband was proud to discover that he could run the entire distance (he only trained up to 3.25 miles). (Anna's race report)

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These posts below are "oldies but goodies". Because of a stupid mistake I made with forwarding my email, I missed these posts when they were sent to me! But they were too good not to share, so here they are--a little late. Better late than never, though!

(March 2014) I really love that Robin shared this story--it's non-weight loss, non-fitness related, but she did something awesome, and it's definitely worth bragging about! The COO of Robin's company was raising money for the St. Baldrick's Foundation to conquer childhood cancer, and in the eleventh hour, was still $2600 away from his goal. After finagling with some coworkers, Robin felt brave enough to offer up her hair, raising $1565 to shave her head! The money she raised, along with the other coworkers, brought the COO over his fundraising goal. Robin said she started an active lifestyle in November, and this is something she never would have done at her heaviest.

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(November 2013) Kristen is VERY proud of her son, Elijah, who completed his first 5K race! At only 10 years old, he ran/walked the Awesome 80's 5K in San Francisco, earning a huge medal with Darth Vader on it. Throughout the whole race, he never complained or stopped moving! (My kids are so jealous of this Darth Vader medal, and now they want to train for a 5K so they can get one too, haha) Elijah, keep it up--you did great!!

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(February 2013) Pam has been maintaining a huge weight loss for a little over three years now, and she struggles just like I do. When she wrote in for Motivational Monday, she was very proud to have conquered a difficult situation--a buffet for her grandson's birthday dinner. The buffet had bread, pizza, a salad bar, a table of all Mexican food, Chinese food, desserts, kids favorites, wings, pasta, and all sorts of other things. Pam was determined to stay on track with her healthy new lifestyle, so she took some yummy foods from the salad bar: fresh fruit, pickles, broccoli salad, a small garlic roll, and half a cup of spaghetti with marinara. She avoided ALL the other temptations and stuck with her plan, feeling proud when she left the restaurant.

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Congrats to everyone for your accomplishments! Don't forget to check out the Motivational Monday Facebook post for more stories :)

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Pecan Pie

My kids stayed the night at my parents' house last night, and Jerry left for work early this morning, so I had the perfect opportunity to sleep in again. But of course, when opportunity presents itself, it just doesn't work out. I was up by 7:00.

I started to get dressed, and then had the sudden urge to go for a run. My last run was the Heartbreak Hill Half last Sunday, and I had planned to take a full week off of running in order to get my head back in the game. I think it worked, because I definitely felt like running today! So I started back to it a day early.

It wasn't humid this morning (thank goodness!) and the fish flies seemed to be hiding out. It's kind of strange--they hatched and were ALL over the place a couple of days ago, but now, they aren't too bad. I decided to run a four mile out-and-back route, away from the lake, so that the fish flies wouldn't be so much of a problem.

I was a little nervous about how my legs were going to feel after six days off of running. For the first half-mile or so, I felt a little stiff and clumsy, but I could feel myself loosening up as I went. I was sure my pace would be 11:00+ minutes/mile, but my pace was under 10:00, so I felt good with that. I think the week off was good for me.

I saw my dad's truck as I was turning a corner, and he was heading home. Since it was only 7:30 in the morning, I immediately thought, "Ohhh, I bet he just got doughnuts from Monica's!" and I was so tempted to just run straight to his house, but I kept going ;)  (I later found out that he did, in fact, get doughnuts from Monica's.)

After the first few miles, I saw that I was finishing each mile progressively faster, so I decided to try to aim for negative splits all around. I ran a sub-9:00 fourth mile, and felt really good!

I sat on the porch for a little while, just enjoying being outside without the humidity.

My calves were bothering me a little after my run. I had noticed that they were hurting a little while I ran the Heartbreak Hill races, and I think it may have something to do with the hills--I'm just not used to them here. At the expo, the blogger group I was with was given a coupon to get "The Stick" (or another product from that booth). I'd heard of it before, and I know a lot of people swear by it, so I chose the "Stiff Stick"--sounds so naughty, doesn't it?! The first one I picked didn't fit in my suitcase, so I had to exchange it for a smaller version.

Anyway, I decided to give it a try on my calves today.

It definitely hurt while I was rolling it over my calves, so I think that means I was doing it correctly. It reminds me a lot of foam rolling, only it's a lot easier to do. I don't know how well it works, but some of the other bloggers I was with said they love their sticks ;) It may have been my imagination, but my calves did feel better after "sticking" them.

After the kids came home, I decided to make a pecan pie for my dad. I never know what to buy him for Father's Day (or his birthday, for that matter), but he loves pecan pie, and I actually make a pretty good one. Normally, I can't bake to save my soul, but I can make a damn good pecan pie. It came out picture-perfect!

The kids and I went to get a Father's Day present for Jerry, and then we brought the pie and a card over to my parents' house. I made sure to leave before my dad cut into it, because it would be too hard to resist--and it's something like 500+ calories per slice! I usually only have it once or twice a year--Thanksgiving and my dad's birthday.

Well, we are off to take Jerry out for dinner! It feels like a Friday night, for some reason, and I keep forgetting the kids have school tomorrow. It needs to be summer already!

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A walk with the kids

I slept SO deeply last night. I haven't slept that well in longer than I can remember! This morning, I woke up from a very vivid dream, and was kind of confused for a minute, and then before falling back asleep, I glanced at the clock. 8:30. What the heck?! I am usually thrilled when I can sleep until 7:00, so I was shocked to see that I slept that late.

It felt so good to sleep in, but I flew out of bed to check on the kids. They had woken up at their usual 6:30, and played their iPods. I felt bad that they were awake for so long while I slept, but I really needed to catch up on my sleep, and they didn't seem to mind.

Because the fish flies are so bad near my house, I decided to take the kids to the Metropark this morning for a walk on the trails, because there aren't any fish flies there. The kids groaned about going, but it was gorgeous outside today (practically no humidity at all), so I wanted to get in some activity.

We went to the park and I decided on a lollipop route that goes on gravel/dirt trails. I never run that area, but it's nice to walk. I spent probably 10 minutes explaining to the kids what a lollipop route is. I even drew it the air, to help explain, but Eli misunderstood, thinking that WE would be going up in the air, "like in a helicopter" and flying in a circle.

Once we turned onto the dirt part of the path, the kids were both really happy to be out there. Noah even said that this was way better than playing his iPod.

We called my dad, who was working at the park, and told him to meet us at the boat launch. We stopped to talk to him for a few minutes, and then continued on the trail.

It felt like we were walking forever, but it actually wasn't even two miles. We stopped several times to look at stuff, so it took us well over an hour. It was a nice morning with the boys! I think we'll do it again after one of their half-days of school this coming week.

In the afternoon, I let them talk me into taking them out for an ice cream. While we were waiting in line, I heard a dog bark, and when I looked around, I noticed it across the street. We were on a pretty busy road, but there was a pit bull tied to a fence in a parking lot across the street from where we were standing.

There weren't any cars or people around the dog, so I was curious as to what it was doing there. I kept watching to see if anyone went over there, and after about 10 minutes, I figured I should probably call animal control. It appeared as if someone had just abandoned the dog there. So I called animal control to let them know, and they said they were going to send someone out.

About five minutes later, as we were getting ready to leave, I was going to ask for a cup of water to bring to the dog. Right as I stood up, I saw a man and a little girl come out of the store, and walk over to the dog. The man took the leash from the fence, and they walked away, bringing the dog with them. So I'm assuming he was the owner, and just tied his dog up outside the store while he shopped. Normally, I don't jump the gun on that kind of stuff, but I felt bad for the dog just standing there in the sun, and it really did appear abandoned. So I just called animal control back to let them know.

My brother, Nathan, ran his first 10K race this morning. I got a text from him with his finishing stats, and he finished in 49:36! That's an awesome 10K time, especially for his first. He had been hoping for sub-50, so he definitely hit his goal. I told him that he missed my PR by 13 seconds, so next time he should aim to beat his sister ;)

So speaking of running, I'm only taking one more day off, and then I am going to start with a much-lower-mileage running schedule. I'm keeping it super basic and open to running however I feel that day (if I want to run slow, I'll run slow, and if I want to speed it up, I will). But it will pretty much look like this:

Monday- speed work (intervals, hills, tempo, fartlek, whatever I feel like doing)
Tuesday- 3 miles
Wednesday- rest
Thursday- 4 miles
Friday- 8-12 miles (9:1 run/walk, if I want)
Saturday- rest
Sunday- 4 miles

That's about 25-30 miles per week, so it's enough that I feel like I'm maintaining fitness, but not so much to make me get burnt out. I'm really looking forward to running just to run, and not really "train" for anything! I'm going to be doing a couple of half marathons this fall, but I don't think I'll start training to PR until early next year.

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Hatched

I couldn't have picked a worse month to do my challenge of walking 12,000+ steps per day! Not only am I taking a whole week off of running, making it harder for me to get in steps, but yesterday, the fish flies hatched.

Fish flies are these really nasty looking bugs that come around for a couple of weeks in the summer (usually mid-June). They don't sting or bite, but they're a huge nuisance. This is what they look like up close:

Ugly, right? They're attracted to light, movement, and shade. If you leave a porch light on overnight, the porch will be inches deep (literally) of the bugs. Normally, they just land on something (like the shutter in the photo above) and stay there until you walk by. They like movement, so they fly off and swarm you, trying to land on you. They also like to sit on the road, particularly in the shade.

Walking to the bus stop today was awful! Half of my street is completely shaded in the afternoon, I plugged my nose and covered my mouth, waved my arms, and just walked as quickly as possible down the street. They swarmed me, of course, and I had to pick about 10 of them off of me once I got into the sun.

Here is a pile of them next to the road:

I went for a couple of walks today, but it was awful. I'll probably have to walk and run on the treadmill for a couple of weeks until they're gone.

Anyway, that's what's going on here :)

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I saw a snack/meal idea in Weight Watchers magazine this month for zucchini with spaghetti sauce and mozzarella cheese that really gave me a craving for zucchini. So weird. But I bought some yesterday, and today I made it with a couple of modifications. I cut the zucchini into spaghetti shape, and then sautéed it, along with some mushrooms, in coconut oil. Then I added marinara sauce, topped it with mozzarella and parmesan cheese, and the put it under the broiler until the cheese started to brown.

Holy smokes, was it ever good! The whole thing was only 5 PointsPlus.

Zucchini will never be a substitute for pasta, in my eyes, but as a dish in itself, I really like it. I have a feeling I'll be eating a lot of it this summer.

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Last night, I was over at my parents' house for a few minutes, and my mom gave me a box of stuff that she'd saved over the years. Inside, there were a bunch of copies of my high school newspaper that I wrote for. I randomly pulled one out, and flipped to my story, and read it out loud to Jerry. I was cracking up! I wrote it 1999, and it was about how trends have changed. Well, reading it today is hysterical, because the trends have certainly changed once again. (You can click to enlarge)

I cringed while reading it, but it was too funny not to share. I'm excited to go through the rest of the papers and see what else I wrote ;)

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Back of the pack runners

This whole week is going by so fast. I can't believe that it was a week ago that I left for Boston! Not running this week has made me feel like I have so much more "free" time, but I can't really say I've been super productive.

I started the process of changing my email address. I was at the point where I was feeling embarrassed to tell people what my email address was, because when I started my blog, the email address was just meant to be kind of funny/clever. (It's SlimKatie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com--I came up with "SlimKatie" because I'm an Eminem fan, and it rhymed with Slim Shady... um, yeah, it seemed clever at the time!)

Anyway, I really wished I didn't add that "Slim" before "Katie", so I've decided to drop the Slim. It sounds like it would be really simple, but I used my blog email address as a sign-in for a lot of sites, and it's all over my blog, so I've been slowly but surely changing it over.

In the process, I logged into the email address Katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com, which I had created a couple of years ago in case someone typed that by mistake, and I noticed a big problem. I had set the email to forward everything to the SlimKatie one, and there were several emails that were never forwarded. Which meant I never saw them.

I felt awful, because some of them were great Motivational Monday posts! Even though they are now outdated, I'm going to post them on Monday. I think I've gotten ahold of everyone who was affected by the error, but if not, I'm so sorry about the mix-up. From now on, my email address is Katie (at) runsforcookies (dot) com, but I will still get the emails to the other address. I feel a little more like a grown-up now, after dropping the "Slim" part ;)

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Heather, one of the bloggers that was at the Heartbreak Hill Half & Festival, wrote a great post about her experience during the half-marathon. Heather is normally a pretty fast runner, which she explains in the post, but she was sick the morning of the half, and wound up finishing next-to-last. Her experience was very different from someone in the middle to front of the pack (not in a good way), and sadly, it happens pretty often during races.

I experienced being in the back of the pack before, too. I think some races do a much better job with it, and some races just seem to "forget" about the back of the pack. But like Heather mentions in her post, all of the athletes pay the same registration fee, so they should all be entitled to the same experience. Unfortunately, it just doesn't work that way. I'm hoping that her post will really help open the eyes of race directors (who can take it into consideration while planning races), as well as the people in the front of the pack (who just aren't aware that this is going on).

When Jerry and I went to the Detroit Free Press Marathon in 2013 specifically to cheer on every single athlete, I felt so sad for the people in the back. When I ran the marathon in 2012, and came out of the tunnel at mile 8, there were a ton of spectators cheering and ringing cowbells--it was awesome! I knew that's where I wanted to hang out during the race as a spectator, and we watched the first person come through, and then we stayed until the final walker came through.

Jerry and I were literally the ONLY spectators still standing there when the last person came through that tunnel.

We rang the cowbells and cheered, and the walkers bringing up the rear of the race thanked us and said that nobody ever stays to cheer for them. That was heartbreaking! They're out there nearly twice as long as the average runner, but they don't get to feel the excitement in the air and the hear the cheers as they work on a very physically challenging goal.

I know there are some races that definitely cater to the back of the pack as well as the leaders, so I'm hoping that maybe in the comments here, we can compile a list. If you've been in the back of the pack at a race before, but had a great experience (all the water stations and spectators were still there, the volunteers were still out, etc), please leave a comment to let us all know which race that was.

Personally, I think the Indy 500 Festival Mini Marathon (13.1 miles) is an amazing race for front and back of the pack runners. That's the race that I did when I was 253 pounds, and the cut-off time is 4 hours. I walked the entire thing, and finished in something like 3:52--definitely the tail end. But the experience was awesome!

I noticed that the people in the back are usually a little more talkative, and it was fun to chat during the race (I'm usually super quiet, but I get very talkative during a race!). There were bands playing throughout the entire course, and none of them packed up to leave before the race was over. All of the volunteers and aid stations were still set up, with plenty of supplies. The finish line party was going full-swing. A great race, and I highly recommend that for a first half-marathon (or if you're just looking for a fun race).

Any other suggestions of a good race, for fast or slow runners/walkers? Give them a shout out!

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